‘Daniel Craig Is Not Bond’ – Ian Fleming

[James]

Mildly interesting...

http://bondjamesbond.wordpress.com/2006 ... n-fleming/

‘Daniel Craig Is Not Bond’ – Ian Fleming

That’s exactly what Ian Fleming is telling me from across Jamaica, from across 53 years to be exact. The image above is our new Epson CX300 high-quality scan of our old copy of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale (New American Library 1953) – I have read it 4 times idea for idea, if not word for word; it’s only 144 pages in a pocket-size format. I have marginal notes and internal notes and underlines and plenty of this – @ – to signify a point, phrase or paragraph I want to read again or quote at some other point in time. And today, in my 4th reading, I found a bombshell that I shall now explode.

But first, here is James Bond explaining to Mathis how he got the license to kill, to be 007:

It was a pretty sound job. Nice and clean too. Three hundred yards away. No personal contact. The next time in Stockholm wasn’t so pretty. I had to kill a Norwegian who was doubling against us for the Germans. He’d managed to get two of our men captured – probably bumped off for all I know. For various reasons it had to be an absolutely silent job. I chose the bedroom of his flat and a knife. And, well, he just didn’t die very quickly.

For those two jobs I was awarded a Double O number in the Service. Felt pretty clever and got a reputation for being good and tough. A Double O number in our Service means you’ve had to kill a chap in cold blood in the course of some job. (page 109)

Tough, not brutish, not sadistic, not animal. ‘Kill in the course of a job’ means kill if you have to, not because you want to. Bond shifts paradigm:

Now, that’s all very fine – the hero kills two villains; but when the hero Le Chiffre starts to kill the villain Bond and the villain Bond knows he isn’t a villain at all, you see the other side of the medal. The villains and heroes get all mixed up. (page 109)

It’s the animal, the madman in Le Chiffre mixing up the distinction between hero and villain. In Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale, the roles are reversed; the hero becomes the villain – James Bond. He is all mixed up; he is villainous; he is all animal; he is all madman.

There’s no lesson from Casino Royale (the movie) except brutality – and how to play baccarat with millions of dollars at your disposal. There’s a lesson from Casino Royale (the book) about learning. Here Bond tells Mathis about the devil:

So, Le Chiffre was serving a wonderful purpose, a really vital purpose, perhaps the best and highest purpose of all. By his evil existence, which foolishly I have helped to destroy, he was creating a norm of badness by which, and by which alone, an opposite norm of goodness could exist. We were privileged, in our short knowledge of him, to see and estimate his wickedness, and we emerge from the acquaintance better and more virtuous men. (page 111)

Borrowing from Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale, I see that Daniel Craig’s James Bond has created a norm of badness by which, and by which alone, an opposite norm of goodness now exists – Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond. With Daniel Craig’s James Bond, we were privileged, in our short knowledge of him, to see and estimate his wickedness. So I hope we emerge from that acquaintance better and more virtuous men (embracing women). Otherwise, we haven’t learned at all and Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale was all an exercise in futility.

[Mazer Rackham]

Got to love that title "‘Daniel Craig is not Bond’ – Ian Fleming"

Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale and Quark was all an exercise in futility

[James]

Got to love that title "‘Daniel Craig is not Bond’

It's quite catchy. Someone should base a website around it.

[Mazer Rackham]

Got to love that title "‘Daniel Craig is not Bond’

It's quite catchy. Someone should base a website around it.

I could say something cutting and probably get myself banned. Instead I'll play nice and say imagine a world where we didn't need such a slogan and reiteration of fact. In pre 2006 media without all modern integral political correctness and various pet causes, Craig would have been laughed off the world stage. Fact is Craig gets by on his looks. No he is not handsome, alluring, or charismatic. He gets by because his look is ugly and his manner brash. People feel badly for him and don't want to be cruel. Isn't crueler not to be honest with him?

Behind closed door to people in power Craig is a laughing-stock. He complains and whines about working. Bitches about scrips that someone dares present to him, the great Craig.
He starts feuds and act like an ass to various media figures who he feels mishandled him or tired to make him look stupid (not that hard to do by the way). Craig acts like he is a big shot in the worst way and yet he wonders why he can't do something else. There are very good roles out they but they are going to actors who bring in an audience and have proven themselves willing to work on all aspects of promotion/production and who do not bitch about making the rounds to talk to people about their films and don't have phobias about have to deal with their fans.

[stockslivevan]

So deep down everyone praising Craig's performance as Bond only claims to like him just because they don't want to come off as mean?



Sounds just like the excuse DCINBers were scattering around searching for when CR became a critical/financial success.

[Mazer Rackham]

So deep down everyone praising Craig's performance as Bond only claims to like him just because they don't want to come off as mean?



Sounds just like the excuse DCINBers were scattering around searching for when CR became a critical/financial success.

No Craig gets a pass on several key aspects essential to Bond. Which didn't go as well for him with Quark by the by. CR is a one off that mostly received praise becasue it wasn't James Bond. The New Trek has the same crowd cheering it. Not becasue they love Star Trek rather because it is different from what Star Trek had been before. Which is a problem for the real Trek fans out there. Just as Craig is a problem Bond fans who actually like the books and the movies. Judging from some of the reviews Craig is the Chekov of this reboot.

I've read reviews of Craig some going as far as saying "the face of Nazi and the body of a model". After the initial poor press reception and becasue of the fan response 100's of million were spent repackaging Craig the first tact was "he is being picked on". Oh! how badly he feels becasue of this or that. Next interviews he goes back to being a stuck up prick. The press got played becasue of their political agendas, and they still don't review a his movies becasue they are afraid of a stigma that might associated if they don't continue the charade.

Look at Hugh Jackman. It's be come accepted behavior to deride him and criticize his movies. His X-men origins was lambasted although it is head and shoulders above the likes of Quark and some other awful movies in the last year. But the reviews contend that it isn't as good as X-men United or Batman Begins or Dark Knight. Glad they can pacify their consciences with such drivel and yet pass on glowing reviews of complete crap because it isn't compared to other good movies just a few of the more memorably bad, cherry picked examples.

Craig's whole mental outlook is one that needs to be coddled, he could never take a critical eye focused on him.

[katied]

Too right about Craig being stuck up in interviews*.He's got a chip on his shoulder and it doesn't take much to make him mad.I posted a story from when he was promoting CR..went off on a journalist who asked him a question that hit too close to home(about being bullied).

* I don't care if some people think that's too harsh.